How Manmohan Singh came around on nuclear deal

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday said he supported the India-US nuclear deal once he was convinced it was good for the people and could be achieved. Jayanth Jacob reports.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday said he supported the India-US nuclear deal once he was convinced it was good for the people and could be achieved.

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He was responding to former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice's contention, in her book, that he was sceptical in the run-up to the July 2005 joint statement as he was unsure of the impact on domestic politics.

"When I became convinced the deal can be achieved and was in people's interest, I supported it. These are various stages in discussions," he told journalists on his way back from the Saarc summit in the Maldives.

"I don't know what Rice has written. I think the reference was to what happened in July 2005. I don't remember the sequence of events in one day."

HT had first reported that in No Higher Honor, Rice wrote that it was then external affairs minister Natwar Singh who worked with US interlocutors to convince the PM, and that once Singh was on board, he threw everything behind the deal.